inferno
Mar 30th, 2005, 07:48 AM
Geoscience at the BA: The first Americans? September 7, 2004
A new anthropological study of skeletons from Mexico is helping to resolve one of the most inflammatory questions in human migration.
Site Editor Ted Nield writes: New research is showing that the modern people now referred to as Native Americans were not in fact the first people to have colonised the Americas. Studies of ancient skull shape - soon to be reinforced by new DNA data - suggest that the first immigrants arrived towards the end of the last Ice Age from Australia/Polynesia by island-hopping clockwise around the Pacific. Modern Native Americans probably derive from a later wave that arrived by land from central Asia. The findings, from the first year of a new £2m, three-year NERC research project (see below), were presented to the British Association today.
There are fewer more contentious problems in human evolution than how the Americas were first colonised. Most early sites where human remains and cultures have been found date to the latest Pleistocene, which in North America reflects the expansion of the Clovis archaeological culture around 13,500 years ago. However the earliest accepted date of human settlement in the Americas comes from the other end of the continent, in Southern Chile (Monte Verde) dated to at 14,500 years ago. This is a problem because the material culture found there is very different from that of North American Clovis sites.
Surprisingly, very few relevant human finds have been radiocarbon dated directly. Human femora from Santa Rosa Island (offshore S. California) date to 12,960 years, Buhl Woman, Idaho to 12,700, and Kennewick Man (Washington State) to 8,800 years. The Santa Rosa finds were made in 1959 by Phil C. Orr, curator of anthropology and natural history at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. The remainsí early date (determined recently) made her remains the oldest known human skeleton from North America, and challenged the popular belief that the first colonists arrived at the end of the last ice age (about 11,500 years ago) over a Bering land bridge connecting Siberia to Alaska and north-western Canada. The earlier date, and the location of the woman's remains on the island, added weight to an alternative theory that some early settlers may have constructed boats and migrated from Asia by sailing along the Pacific coast. The Kennewick Man remains have become mired in an extended legal battle over whether they are or are not subject to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, and thus the extent to which scientific examination of the remains can be allowed.
* To find out more about this subject, visit http://www.cr.nps.gov/aad/kennewick/
Although the situation is complex and fraught with political difficulty, one thing that can be said for certain is that Palaeoamerican skeletons older than 10,000 years are morphologically diverse and largely lack characteristic physical traits of the American Indian (Amerindian). Mexico plays a key role in attempting to throw light on problem because of its central geographical position. The Preceramic Human Collection of the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City houses 27 palaeoamerican remains that offer a unique possibility to combine direct dating of bone, craniometric studies and DNA to answer the burning question of who exactly were ́the first Americansî.
Dr Silvia Gonzalez (Liverpool John Moores University) says: ́These remains also lack typical Amerindian morphologies, having dolicocephalic (long, narrow) skulls and relatively short, narrow faces." Modern Native Americans have broad or brachycephalic heads, characteristic of Central Asian peoples. "They appear more similar to southern Asians, Australians and populations of the South Pacific Rim than they do to Northern Asians. The evidence indicates that the Late Pleistocene Palaeoindians were different from Late Holocene and Modern Amerindian populations, with their more Mongolian affinities.î
(The early dolicocephalic Americans may have survived until as late as the 17th Century, to be described by early Jesuit missionaries to Baja, California. It is thought that an isolated relict population became stranded there and survived without genetic mixing until Western civilisation finally finished them off.)
Four of the Mexican Museum skeletons have recently been radiocarbon dated, and have been found to date from the Late Pleistocene-Early Holocene. Pẻon Woman III is the oldest so far, dated to 12,700 years. All the other skeletons in the collection are currently being studied in the NERC-sponsored project whose early results are showing important morphological differences from the bone structures of recent populations in the area, according to Dr Silvia Gonzalez (Liverpool John Moores University) speaking today.
Several models have been proposed to explain these differences between early and later populations. Some models have suggested many separate waves of migration, with early groups becoming extinct. Others have postulated differentiation of populations in situ. ́The Mexican skeletons may be able to resolve these, and work to date suggests that the morphologically different populations were (at least partly) contemporaneous.î says Gonzalez.
́We are able to test different migration routes into the Americas, to try to understand how humans moved across the planet and what triggered these dispersion events across continents. We are expecting more dating results on several Palaeoindian skeletons, together with new excavations in recently discovered sites indicating early human presence around Central Mexico.î Gonzalez told reporters. "The DNA tests will also allow us to see whether the oldere techniques using craniometry were reliable".
Source: http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/template.cfm?name=BA200402
A new anthropological study of skeletons from Mexico is helping to resolve one of the most inflammatory questions in human migration.
Site Editor Ted Nield writes: New research is showing that the modern people now referred to as Native Americans were not in fact the first people to have colonised the Americas. Studies of ancient skull shape - soon to be reinforced by new DNA data - suggest that the first immigrants arrived towards the end of the last Ice Age from Australia/Polynesia by island-hopping clockwise around the Pacific. Modern Native Americans probably derive from a later wave that arrived by land from central Asia. The findings, from the first year of a new £2m, three-year NERC research project (see below), were presented to the British Association today.
There are fewer more contentious problems in human evolution than how the Americas were first colonised. Most early sites where human remains and cultures have been found date to the latest Pleistocene, which in North America reflects the expansion of the Clovis archaeological culture around 13,500 years ago. However the earliest accepted date of human settlement in the Americas comes from the other end of the continent, in Southern Chile (Monte Verde) dated to at 14,500 years ago. This is a problem because the material culture found there is very different from that of North American Clovis sites.
Surprisingly, very few relevant human finds have been radiocarbon dated directly. Human femora from Santa Rosa Island (offshore S. California) date to 12,960 years, Buhl Woman, Idaho to 12,700, and Kennewick Man (Washington State) to 8,800 years. The Santa Rosa finds were made in 1959 by Phil C. Orr, curator of anthropology and natural history at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. The remainsí early date (determined recently) made her remains the oldest known human skeleton from North America, and challenged the popular belief that the first colonists arrived at the end of the last ice age (about 11,500 years ago) over a Bering land bridge connecting Siberia to Alaska and north-western Canada. The earlier date, and the location of the woman's remains on the island, added weight to an alternative theory that some early settlers may have constructed boats and migrated from Asia by sailing along the Pacific coast. The Kennewick Man remains have become mired in an extended legal battle over whether they are or are not subject to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, and thus the extent to which scientific examination of the remains can be allowed.
* To find out more about this subject, visit http://www.cr.nps.gov/aad/kennewick/
Although the situation is complex and fraught with political difficulty, one thing that can be said for certain is that Palaeoamerican skeletons older than 10,000 years are morphologically diverse and largely lack characteristic physical traits of the American Indian (Amerindian). Mexico plays a key role in attempting to throw light on problem because of its central geographical position. The Preceramic Human Collection of the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City houses 27 palaeoamerican remains that offer a unique possibility to combine direct dating of bone, craniometric studies and DNA to answer the burning question of who exactly were ́the first Americansî.
Dr Silvia Gonzalez (Liverpool John Moores University) says: ́These remains also lack typical Amerindian morphologies, having dolicocephalic (long, narrow) skulls and relatively short, narrow faces." Modern Native Americans have broad or brachycephalic heads, characteristic of Central Asian peoples. "They appear more similar to southern Asians, Australians and populations of the South Pacific Rim than they do to Northern Asians. The evidence indicates that the Late Pleistocene Palaeoindians were different from Late Holocene and Modern Amerindian populations, with their more Mongolian affinities.î
(The early dolicocephalic Americans may have survived until as late as the 17th Century, to be described by early Jesuit missionaries to Baja, California. It is thought that an isolated relict population became stranded there and survived without genetic mixing until Western civilisation finally finished them off.)
Four of the Mexican Museum skeletons have recently been radiocarbon dated, and have been found to date from the Late Pleistocene-Early Holocene. Pẻon Woman III is the oldest so far, dated to 12,700 years. All the other skeletons in the collection are currently being studied in the NERC-sponsored project whose early results are showing important morphological differences from the bone structures of recent populations in the area, according to Dr Silvia Gonzalez (Liverpool John Moores University) speaking today.
Several models have been proposed to explain these differences between early and later populations. Some models have suggested many separate waves of migration, with early groups becoming extinct. Others have postulated differentiation of populations in situ. ́The Mexican skeletons may be able to resolve these, and work to date suggests that the morphologically different populations were (at least partly) contemporaneous.î says Gonzalez.
́We are able to test different migration routes into the Americas, to try to understand how humans moved across the planet and what triggered these dispersion events across continents. We are expecting more dating results on several Palaeoindian skeletons, together with new excavations in recently discovered sites indicating early human presence around Central Mexico.î Gonzalez told reporters. "The DNA tests will also allow us to see whether the oldere techniques using craniometry were reliable".
Source: http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/template.cfm?name=BA200402